


Breathe

by songofdefiance



Series: This Won't End With A Whimper [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, F/F, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 16:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14674830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofdefiance/pseuds/songofdefiance
Summary: If Ava thought of anything besides breathing, she would scream.





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so, so sorry.

Ava pulled her phone out of her pocket and, with shaking hands, found the number.

Three rings.  No answer.

Ava breathed.  In, out.  Put it in a box.

She hadn’t put her pain and fear in a box in a long time.  She knew, though, that if she didn’t right then, it would drive her to do something ill-advised.  Like drive her fist into the wall.  She looked around the deserted room, at the sleeping bags on the floor that were covered in dust.

She dialed the number again.  Three rings.  No answer.

They had been playing a game.  Ava couldn’t remember what the game was.  All she knew was that it had been pleasant.  She locked away her regret over that, and stood.  Brushed more dust off her pants.  Tried not to vomit.

Three rings.  No answer.

She walked out of the room, pretending like she was only walking down the halls at her old school.  Her footprints left a trailed behind her as she headed through the crumbling structure of the build they had been hiding in, over to a window where she would be able to get a view of the rest of Seattle.

Smoke, pouring from the city.  Sirens, screaming in the distance.  The world, holding its breath in a way that she couldn’t afford to.

Ava went back into the room, and grabbed her tote bag.  She put a few essential in it - changes of clothes, a toothbrush.  She hesitated for a moment, then went over to the pile of dust near the door.  There was a side-arm in it.  She removed the bullets, and placed both them and the gun in her bag as well.

There was a protocol for this.  Leave the building immediately.  Get to the other side of the country as fast as possible.  Outside of the country was even better, if that was possible.

The protocol did not cover the scenario in which the airport was on fire.  As Ava suspected it was.  

Three rings.  A voice.

“Hello?”

Ava had done so well at putting everything in a box, where it belonged, but it all broke out with her shaky exhale.  “Natasha - “

“Ava?”  Ava started crying, but she kept it silent.  A part of her hated herself for the display of emotion.  But she knew that Sharon would be proud of it, so she ignored that part.

“Yes,” she said.

Natasha did not give thanks to any deity on Earth.  Instead, she breathed, like she herself was doing everything she could to put her emotions in a box.  “How many?” she asked.

“Everyone.”

One short, sharp inhale.  The silence.

Ava was still crying.  She couldn’t seem to stop.  

“Stay there,” Natasha ordered.  “I’m coming to get you.”

“What if the…”  What was it?  Ava didn’t know.  “…attack compromised our - my - location?”

Natasha let out a harsh laugh.  “It didn’t.”

_How do you_ know? Ava wanted to scream.  She refrained.  Said, “Alright.”

Natasha hung up without saying goodbye.  Ava went back inside, but did not go back to where her sleeping bag was.  Instead, she went to sit in one of the empty classrooms.  She sat in a corner, took Sharon’s gun out of the tote bag, and started to disassemble it.  Disassemble, clean, reassemble.  The repeated motions kept her calm.

She didn’t stop crying.

**Author's Note:**

> For context: the Red Room survivors had to go into hiding during Civil War, and Sharon was the one who arranged all that. I meant to write a fic about that one day, but other fandoms distracted me. My own emotions over Infinity War were enough to get me to write this, though.


End file.
